The 'New Elite' Is Taking Over, Say Elites

Charles Murray set off a firestorm with an essay in The Washington Post
arguing that the Tea Party is right—an out-of-touch "New Elite" is
taking over the U.S. These elites aren't the dim-witted Wasps of yore;
they go to the best universities, win high-powered jobs, and segregate
themselves from the rest of us by living in the snobbiest neighborhoods
in a few cities. They intermarry, passing along their wealth, privilege,
and big-brained DNA onto their kids.

"The more efficiently a
society identifies the most able young people of both sexes, sends them
to the best colleges, unleashes them into an economy that is tailor-made
for people with their abilities and lets proximity take its course, the
sooner a New Elite... becomes a class unto itself," Murray writes. "It
is by no means a closed club, as Barack Obama's example
proves. But the credentials for admission are increasingly held by the
children of those who are already members." Murray references
several red and blue state cultural touchstones, like Mad Men and
ultimate fighting, a brave act considering it not only invites members
of each tribe to one-up the author with slightly more relevant pop
cultural references, but also inspires a round of mocking from liberal
bloggers with assembly-line-working, WWE-loving pasts. "Taken
individually, members of the New Elite are isolated from mainstream
America as a result of lifestyle choices that are nobody's
business but their own. But add them all up, and they mean that the New
Elite lives in a world that doesn't intersect with mainstream America
in many important ways. When the tea party says the New Elite doesn't
get America, there is some truth in the accusation."

It's Not
that They're Smug. They're Dumb says Glenn Reynolds of Instapundit. "Forget cultural
insularity or smugness. The main problem with the 'new elite' is that
they’re not an elite at all. That is, they aren’t particularly
smart, or competent. They are credentialed, but those credentials aren’t
so much markers for smartness or competence, or even basic education,
as they are admission tickets to the Gentry Class, based on good
standardized test scores. That’s fine—ETS was berry, berry good to
me—but it doesn’t have much to
do with ability to succeed, or lead, in the real world. Worse yet, it
seems to have fostered a sense of entitlement."

Why
Would There Be More Resentment Now? argues James Joyner at Outside the
Beltway. It's easier than ever to climb the social ladder. "Aside from
people who are true geniuses, it’s quite unusual to grow up in abject
poverty—or even the lower middle class—and navigate the path to the
Ivies and truly elite status. Which means that, no, the playing field isn’t
completely level. Still, aside from the most dysfunctional families and
circumstances, the road from poverty to a four-year degree from a
regional university and admission to the middle class is hardly full of
obstacles." Joyner himself has "a foot in both 'Americas'," being the
first generation in his family to go to college and having served in the
military. But, he says, people from both are "Real Americans."
Unfortunately, "a lot of people who’ve lived their whole lives in one
or the other seem not to feel that way."

Conspicuously
Absent from This Analysis: Money "Can you write about class without
mentioning money?" David Frum asks. Murray's attempt to define
elite status by power instead of money makes for "very, very strange
reading," Frum writes. "I wonder if it ever
occurs to him that Tim LaHaye – the minister
turned author who has sold those 65 million copies of the Left Behind
series – might belong to some kind of elite? He has money and power, doesn’t
he? (LaHaye
played an important role in securing evangelical support for George W.
Bush in 2000.) But no: LaHaye is an
evangelical Christian and so is by definition excluded. ... Factory
floors off limits to the American elite? I have to believe that more
than a few members of the Forbes 400 have visited the factories they
own. So that disqualifies all of them. As I said: a strange way to
think. You can call this kind of analysis many things – but social
science sure is not one of them."

Murray
Is the Snob,
aruges
the Economist. The thrust of Murray's argument--even if he doesn't know
it--is that the Tea Party is fueled by the resentment of Americans who
are too dumb to get into the country's best colleges. "Let me put this
plainly here, because Mr Murray won't. Attention all tea-partiers: Charles Murray
thinks Barack Obama is smart, and you're dumb. ... It is one of the
more remarkable aspects of American political culture that Mr Murray's
position might be characterised as a "populist" one, while liberal
efforts to, say, provide every poor and working-class American with
health insurance are seen as elitist and condescending."

Because Charles
Murray Is the "New Elite"Anne
Applebaum
writes at PostPartisan. Murray's
portrait of this class of people is accurate, even entertaining, but he
"makes only one serious error, albeit one that is very interesting: He
leaves himself out." He may have been raised in a non-elite family, but
since his SAT scores got him into Harvard, Murray's lived exactly the
life he describes, spending his career as an academic. "More to the
point, he has made a career out of glorifying meritocracy and even
defending intellectual snobbery," Applebaum says. "You can
choose to live in Virginia instead of Maryland. You can choose to watch NASCAR
instead of the World Cup. You can even vote Republican. But when
politicians use the words 'Ivy League' as an insult, and when Glenn Beck
mocks higher education in general, their targets are people exactly
like Charles Murray."